Tag: small business

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How is America’s Small Business Community is Doing Since the Coronavirus Crisis

The financial crunch from the coronavirus pandemic has hit all across America, and small businesses have felt the impact. The restrictions have had millions of people taking refuge from the outbreak by staying home and avoiding shopping trips that are not necessary.

An analyst predicted that businesses and their distribution from coronavirus could lead to about a 1,500 or more permanent retail stores that would be closed in the year 2020. The Economic Policy Institute predicts that this disease outbreak could wipe out more than 3 million jobs from the economy of the U.S. before this summer.

These concerns have already started for small businesses all around the country. A recent Goldman Sachs survey of more than a 1,500 small business managers learned that more than 50 percent of them don’t think even after the pandemic they would resume their operations, because of the present conditions they suffered in the hands of the outbreak.

Different states in the U.S. have already told businesses that didn’t sell products that were essential to temporarily close. Even in states where the case is different, some small businesses have already closed shops totally or reduced their business hours dramatically as a result of fear from the pandemic.

The Case of a Small Scale Business Woman in North Carolina

One of these small business owners stated she never could have imagined being closed for weeks. She owned a jewelry boutique store in North Carolina.

This particular business woman closed the doors to her store on March 16, 2020, after a very busy previous day. She was concerned that people around were not taking the threat of the disease seriously enough. Her shop normally sees about 15 to 20 people on a normal day, but that previous day was slower than usual; she still had about 25 customers throughout the day.

She felt like it was her duty as a citizen to serve as part of the solution, not be part of the problem. It was her choice to close her shop instead of being part of those ignoring the instructions from the government and the recommendations of social distancing. North Carolina has not organized everyone on the close of non-essential businesses, but it has ordered bars and restaurants to only offer delivery services or takeout.

Presently for retailers across the country, they continue to remain closed and will be closed for many more months. The owner of the jewelry store has no idea when she can open shop again. It feels like it could take months before some form of normalcy could continue. 

With the cash flow from business cut off abruptly, she is left to think about how she’ll cover the rent for her store, which is about $3,800 monthly. She stated her landlord let her defer the expense for about two months with potential for her position to be re-evaluated down the road.

Times are hard, and we can only hope the coronavirus pandemic will be over soon.

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Blue Cross Blue Shield Small Business Plans

Blue Cross Blue Shield is a reputable health insurance company used by people across the U.S. Blue Cross Blue Shield Small Business plans helps small businesses with access to all forms of health care they may require. And they help with the provision of health care to businesses of any size, including small businesses.

For example, an employer has more than two employees but less than 50, managing them all and stressing about their health care will be unnecessary with the presence of Blue Cross Blue Shield Small Business plans available.

Services Available

  • Taking of patients with ambulance emergency services
  • Admission in hospitals
  • Newborn and care for pregnant women
  • Treatments for substance use and treatment to make better the behavior of individuals
  • Drugs prescribed by health care professionals
  • Laboratory check-up
  • Management of chronic diseases and so much more

Available Blue Cross Blue Shield Small Business Plans

The United Healthcare Choice

This is a medical plan that grants you open access to doctors, health care professionals, and health care facilities. This health plan is open to firms of over two employees to as much as 5,000. This plan has features like co-insurance options, co-payments in dollars, and low out of pocket payments when you go to clinics and hospitals for medical transactions.

United Healthcare Choice Plus

This gives the beneficiaries almost the same benefits as the United Healthcare Choice, but in this case, you also have more help from out of network doctors. With this increase in coverage, it leads to an increase in the amount of insurance also with a higher amount than would be deducted.

The Humana Simplicity Plan

This gives beneficiaries health care service. With this plan, the employees decide the percentage of their salaries they would use for their insurance, which would also decide the amount of insurance they would be getting. 

The Level Funded Premium Plan

This plan is for firms with at least 10 employees. It entails medical and pharmacy plans to coincide with programs created for sick employees to get well. Tax premium savings are good with this plan, and refunds are okay for claims which state the insurance plans are more than enough.

The Self-Funded Plan

This lets the owners of firms be able to assume the amount of treatment their employees may need while they work there. And with these assumptions, these premiums could be covered by paying once in a month. This plan grants premium payments that are low for the employees of the firm. 

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How a Small Business Joint Venture Can Help Your Company

You would want to combine your company with the aid of a small business joint venture but not fully understanding what a small business joint venture is all about. Well, a joint venture refers to a means in which more than two people settle down to agree on how they would combine their services, the number of goods they produce, and the amount of capital they all use to create a basic enterprise that would now be commercially used.

With the use of small business joint ventures, your company has more chances to get more opportunities, and with more opportunities, you’ll get more profits.

Advantages of Small Business Joint Venture to Your Company

If you team up with a small business joint venture, you have the following advantages:

  1. Your marketing reach can be extended.
  2. You can access information, skill sets, and all the resources your company needs.
  3. With a small business joint venture, you seem and feel more credible when interacting with a particular market.
  4. With a small business joint venture, you would be able to gain access to more markets than your company was ever able to without the use of the joint venture.
  5. With the joint venture, you would be able to gain use of know-how and technical expertise that your company previously was lacking.
  6. Apart from the technical know-how, your company will also gain access to more mental knowledge on how to manage the firm better than it was before.
  7. With the small business joint venture, risks can be shared and expenses too with the extra help.

Take this example, imagine you and other cake bakers come together to form a small business joint venture. And then you went ahead to create a cake baking competition. 

With you all joining your resources, you can do a lot much more with promoting and advertising your cake baking competition than how it would have been or felt if you went alone. And with this, a lot more people would be excited to attend your cake baking competition than if you stressed and wanted to do it alone.

Joint Ventures and Its Examples

One of the greatest examples of small business joint ventures is related to agriculture. This is because the cost of equipment, land ,and other necessary supplies have their prices increasing daily. With this, smaller farms are pressured into having to increase their means of production, they need joint ventures for them to be able to seize the opportunity of mass production and economies of scale.

A technological company too might also team up with other small businesses that are technological for them all to share the cost of research and to enjoy the profits together.

So, it is great for companies to team up with small business joint ventures.